City outfits Mumbai FC and Air India survive the scare while Shillong Lajong and Sporting Clube relegated.
Mumbai FC and their city rivals Air India escaped from relegation by the skin of their teeth even though both teams put up contrasting performances in the final round matches of the I-League played on Friday.
Instead, the fairytale story of North-East’s first football club in the league, Shillong Lajong, ended in tears as they were relegated to the second division after going down to Salgaocar 1-3 in Goa. Lajong, who finished at the bottom of the table, were joined by Goa’s Sporting Clube de Goa, whose 1-0 win over Chirag United wasn’t enough to assure safety.
The relegation battle this season was more intriguing than the title race, with four teams vying to remain in the top flight of Indian football. And going into the final day of the season, only four points separated the bottom four, with each team having a chance to avoid the drop.
Mumbai FC knew they just had to match or better Lajong’s result to ensure safety. And they did exactly that! The Khalid Jamil-coached side outshone Mohun Bagan in all departments to register a comfortable 2-0 win and end the season with a 11th place finish.
Abhishek Yadav’s brace in the first half was enough for Mumbai FC to scrape through the danger zone.
Simultaneously in Goa, Air India were finding it difficult to keep Churchill Brothers at bay. They eventually lost 1-5, finishing just one place above the bottom two (Sporting Clube de Goa and Shillong Lajong).
Mumbai FC’s task, however, was made easy by Mohun Bagan coach Biswajit Bhattacharya, who chose to field most of his star players.
The green-and-maroons never actually looked threatening and the scoreline could have been worse had Mumbai FC striker Bashiru Abbas converted even a couple of the half-a-dozen chances that came his way. Yadav opened the scoring for the hosts in the 11th minute from the spot. Winger Subhas Chakraborthy was brought down inside the box by Ishfaq Ahmed and referee Pratap Singh had no hesitation in pointing to the spot.
Yadav then doubled the lead in the 24th, latching on to a rebound from an Evans Quao shot that was parried away by Mohun Bagan goalie Pralay Dutta.
“We were confident to avoid relegation as we believed in ourselves. The boys are intelligent enough to understand what was expected of them and I am glad that they delivered it to perfection,” Jamil said.
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